Actor Dan Lauria has brought a legend back to life as the lead in “Lombardi,” running on Broadway at Circle in the Square Theater. The 90-minute drama produced by Tony Ponturo and Fran Kirmser will run through April. The Post spent time this week with “Vince” himself.

Q: Coach Lombardi, if one of your teams suffered the kind of collapse the Giants did against the Eagles, what would you tell your team?

A: I’d say this has happened to test our steel. What kind of men are you now? The measure of a man is not how he falls down, but how he pulls himself off the ground.

Q: How emotional would you get during the week?

A: I’d be emotional in practice during the week. If I saw somebody with his head down, I’d be in their face right away [saying], “This game is the game in front of us. You’re a pro. You move forward. You don’t move back.”

Q: What would you tell the Packers in this spot?

A: You got the Giants on their heels. You gotta go at them right away and they’ll collapse.

Q: How would you have reacted after Matt Dodge punted to DeSean Jackson?

A: He mighta been looking for another job.

Q: Your thoughts on Spygate?

A: That’s why that saying, “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing,” doesn’t pertain. You don’t cheat to win. The thing that made me roll over in my grave was seeing that coach (Sal Alosi) on the sideline at the Jets game stick his knee out like that. Even if you won, it would have been a tainted win. How do you teach people about life if you’re gonna tell ’em cheating is fine? How would you feel if you were a player and you won that game, and you saw that in the highlights? The ones who laughed woulda been off my team.

Q: Which coaches remind you of you?

A: Bill Cowher. Bill Belichick. Bill Parcells.

Q: What do you like about Cowher?

A: I think he’s a good motivator.

Q: Belichick?

A: He and Andy Reid are the two coaches who know how to win while they’re rebuilding.

Q: Parcells?

A: He would be able to get more out of his players. They played above their potential.

Q: What do you think of Tom Coughlin?

A: I think Tom Coughlin’s a very good coach. I think he’s a good educator. He’s got a good system. He draws a line in the sand for the players.

Q: Favorite players today?

A: Troy Polamalu. I don’t care what they call him — he’s a “rover” in our day. He’s got a freedom, but there is discipline because it works within the system. I love that. . . . Eli Manning has a quiet confidence. . . . He reminds me so much of Bart Starr.

Q: Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.

A: I know why people think it came from me. There was a famous photograph of Red Blaik and all his (West Point) coaches. Above it, it said, “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” It came from an old movie with John Wayne — “Trouble Along the Way.” . . . A screenwriter came up with that line.

Q: Fatigue makes cowards of us all?

A: People playing when they’re not in shape. The first time I used it was at St. Cecilia.

Q: Any other favorite quotations you used?

A: Some young reporter came up to me and said, “Coach, you’re such a fanatic.” I looked him in the eye and said: “Son, if I get a heart attack right now, call a fanatical doctor!”

Q: What was the key to you as a motivator?

A: I had the ability to rip down somebody and five minutes later, make him realize I’m doing it because I love him and I want him to be the best he can be.

Q: What about your legendary temper?

A: That’s why I went to Mass every morning. I prayed for patience and understanding. It never seemed to work (heh, heh).

Q: How did you relax?

A: Some nights I would get up and read cookbooks.

Q: And golf, right?

A: I’d just be out there with three other friends and not have to do anything but concentrate on a little white ball.

Q: Wellington Mara?

A: Lifelong friend. He always advised me well. He was the one who said, “Look, I want you to stay here (Giants assistant). You’re not gonna get along with those (Eagles) owners. They’re not gonna let you run the show.”

Q: What did he tell you when the Packers came calling?

A: “I know it’s the Netherlands, but I know you’ll be able to do whatever you want.”

Q: How tempting a moment was it when Mara asked you to return to coach the Giants?

A: The most tempting of my professional career.

Q: What did you try to accomplish in your first Packers training camp?

A: To make them realize that I knew more than them. You have to believe in the system. You have to dedicate yourself to the system. We can’t have 20 guys thinking, “I know how to play my position.” You have to have one team saying, “I know the system.”

Q: Bart Starr?

A: His calm demeanor exuded confidence. He might not have had the most ability, but he was the best field general.

Q: Jim Taylor?

A: Pound for pound, the toughest man I ever met. He would run out of his way to run into somebody. The hardest thing was to get him to run to daylight.

Q: Ray Nitschke?

A: I loved picking on Nitschke in practice because Nitschke could take it. He could take more of me than any guy I knew. I could yell all day long, and Nitschke would get madder and madder and play harder and harder.

Q: Paul Hornung?

A: Probably got less out of his ability than most, but had more ability than anybody I ever coached.

Q: How devastating was it to you when he was suspended for a year for gambling?

A: He was my “bad boy” son. I told him, “You stand at the foot of the cross, you be good, a year from now I’ll get you back.”

Q: Having black players on your team?

A: I will not tolerate any prejudice of any kind. Any minority, once you put on that Packer uniform, you’re a Packer.

Q: Why were you so sensitive about race?

A: Because all my life I was called Wop. I didn’t get a shot in college or the pro level until I was 46 years old.

Q: Alex Karras?

A: He kept calling me a Wop every time he passed the bench. I’d yell, “Karras, we’re running a sweep, try to stop us!”

Q: The 1960 NFL Championship loss to the Eagles?

A: God damn that (Chuck) Bednarik! He sat on Taylor until the clock ran out.

Q: Beating the Giants 37-0 in the ’61 title game?

A: We weren’t 37 points better than the Giants. We just had everything go our way that day.

Q: Beating the Giants 16-7 in the ’62 title game at Yankee Stadium?

A: That was a great game for the game.

Q: What did you tell Starr on the sidelines before that quarterback sneak behind Jerry Kramer at the end of the Ice Bowl?

A: I didn’t call a quarterback sneak. Bart Starr called a fullback dive over right guard. (Chuck) Mercein thought he was gonna get the ball. I said, “It’s too damn cold, run the damn thing.”

Q: Your emotions when it ended?

A: You know, we were not the best team that year. It was just pros giving everything they had.

Q: Why did you love the power sweep so much?

A: Because each man did not know what his assignment was when the play was called. They knew it as the play was developing. Each man was making a split-second decision in concert.

Q: Super Bowl I?

A: I put so much pressure on my men, we didn’t play well in the first half. I went in yelling, “You’re too tight, you’re too tight!” Nitschke stood up and said, “You’re the one who made us too tight!” I said, “Ray, you’re right. So will you guys loosen up before I lose my job?” The second half was very enjoyable.

Q: Why did you put too much pressure on your players?

A: Because the league was calling me — “You can’t just win, you gotta kill ’em (AFL). We gotta get these young players to sign with the National Football League for less money.”

Q: The criticism you took for leaving Green Bay to be coach/GM of the Redskins.

A: I had to get out to become an owner. I realized the game was changing, and only an owner could have control over the players with all this money going around. The Redskins offered me 12 percent. I could tell a player, “Yeah, I make less money, but I own you!” My friends understood. A lot of the press didn’t.

Q: Did the criticism bother you?

A: Anything that diminished or implied that my love for the players was not 100 percent really hurt.

Q: And your wife, Marie, wanted to move to a big city. . . . How much were you affected by her depression?

A: Greatly. I knew I wasn’t the best husband and best father.

Q: Your first Redskins team?

A: I never saw an arm like Sonny Jurgensen’s. That’s when I knew the whole game was gonna change. Four days before I died, I showed Sonny our new offense, and you guys now call it the West Coast offense.

Q: Was it love at first sight when you met Marie?

A: On my part, yes. On her part, no (heh heh).

Q: Fordham football memory.

A: It’s the one game we lost that kept us from going to the Rose Bowl.

Q: Why didn’t you become a priest?

A: I had to be in the public eye. I needed to express myself on a bigger stage.

Q: Who was your biggest influence growing up?

A: My father. My mother was the one who made me a taskmaster. My father is the one who taught me about life.

Q: How did your mother make you a taskmaster?

A: She had to have everything just right. Whenever I didn’t meet her expectations, she made me start all over again.

Q: Four dinner guests?

A: St. Thomas Aquinas; Christ; Pop Warner; Knute Rockne.

Q: Boyhood idol?

A: Red Blaik.

Q: Why?

A: His way of conducting practice, his way of being so efficient. Even when I was at St. Cecilia, I had very organized practices. He had the philosophy of having few plays and learning how to do them excellent instead of having a lot of plays and doing them half-assed.

Q: Player agents?

A: An evil necessity.

Q: What don’t you like about the game today?

A: I don’t like that it’s all done now for the stimulation of the fan instead of the purity of the game. I’d advise any coach, I’d tell them to start drafting on character instead of statistics.

Q: Childhood memory?

A: Working with my father in the butcher shop.

Q: Favorite movie?

A: “The Best Years of Our Lives.”

Q: Favorite actor?

A: James Cagney.

Q: Favorite actress?

A: Barbara Stanwyck.

Q: Favorite entertainer?

A: Frank Sinatra.

Q: Favorite meal?

A: Hamburger and french fries, while I watch film.

Q: What were those final days like in the hospital?

A: I was stubborn. I thought I was gonna beat it the day before I died. I told Sonny and Marie and Sam Huff, “I’m gonna beat this thing.” The next day I was gone. You can’t win ’em all.